PEOPLE to Brad Pitt: About That Beard ...

First of all, Happy Birthday! 46 as of Friday? Hard to believe. And what a year it’s been for you. Accolades for Inglourious Basterds, globe-trotting with those six adorable kids and Angelina, giving away millions to charity. Who's a better guy than you? Nobody! Certainly not that I'll-never-settle-down pal of yours George Clooney ... (JK!) And yet. There is one little thing. We hate even to mention it. It's just this: What's up with that thing on your chin?

At the beginning it just looked like a little week-off stubble. Then perhaps a soul patch being cultivated for a role in a Tarantino follow-up. But weeks passed, and no such part appeared.

Now that scraggly tortilla-chip-crumb trap growing under your lip has taken up permanent residence on a face that, in its clean-shaven days, twice graced our Sexiest Man Alive cover.

So maybe the beard was an act of self-defense against a third Sexiest Man title? Were you worried that Clooney would never stop ribbing you if we crowned you again? No worries! The deadline is long past and, as you know by now, we gave it to the comparatively clean-cut, not to mention younger (JK!), Johnny Depp.

And speaking of Cap’n Jack Sparrow, what is with the pirate booty beads in the beard? Too much. When Zahara and Shiloh can braid baubles into your facial hair on lazy mornings in the family bed, it's time to shave that bad boy. Please.